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We can see that right here on JCLIST! The trolls that back the mayor are coming out of the woodwork. It seems that the intention is to make this mayoral/council race appear so skanky that it turns off the casual voter.

Torres is right on target with several of his main points.

First, Healy's going all-negative all the time, to make people disgusted with the campaign and hold down turnout.

Second, the high degree of "imaginative facts" (otherwise known as lies) about Healy's record and about his opponent.

Third, the remarkable number of broken promises from Healy's last campaign. The biggest broken promise? Trust. With so many of his running mates, campaign staff, and administration members going to jail for corruption, his second term was broken at the start, and he hasn't even made an effort to recover.

There's a pretty clear choice in this election.

Political Insider: As W would say, you're doing a heck of a job, Healy

By Agustin C. Torres/The Jersey Journal
February 23, 2013 at 6:07 AM

Warning: This snarky column is for mature political minds. It contains questionable material taken from Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy's big campaign speech, sometimes referred to as a State of the City address.

This is what you have come to expect from the Political Insider, who long ago announced his displeasure with this administration. These local Democratic royals believe they have a mandate to rule, not from a low-voter victory in 2009 but rather some divine right. They could easily be diagnosed as passive-aggressive -- functionally passive and aggressively political.

In the past six months, aware that defeat could be a reality, the Healy administration has returned to the old campaign playbook, a two-pronged attack. The first is to make this as negative a campaign as possible to make this election distasteful enough so residents will shun the voting booths, allowing the mayor's base of municipal workers/supporters and their families to carry him to another low-voter victory, or at least a runoff.

The second is to mix some truth with smoke and mirrors. City Hall is trying to convince residents that the mayor is transforming a dystopian metropolis into a model of New Urbanism with parks, walkable neighborhoods, "green" construction, affordable housing, and new businesses and many jobs. Except for the waterfront and some commercial districts, do you see his vision?

A State of the City speech from the bully pulpit can go a long way to helping the mayor's re-election bid. Healy admittedly comes off as a likable guy, which is his biggest strength. In my opinion, it has not made him an effective administrator over the past decade. The mayor's problem is the same as some past chief executives of the city. He has an administration full of directors who, with few exceptions, are more reactive than proactive -- except during the six months before every election, when they appear to come out of hibernation.

The mayor has given up on large venues like a college auditorium to give speeches for the smaller and cozy City Council chamber in City Hall, where the majority of seats are taken up by mayoral supporters, city workers and human props ("I'd like to recognize ... Please stand.")

Healy's speech writers provided the expected reference to Hurricane Sandy and his interpretation of what a great job his administration did during the disaster, as well as this year's political de rigueur of citing the Newtown school mass shootings and how he has long advocated better gun control legislation.

What about last year's string of promises?

Healy tells us that all those 2012 assurances that he made are never going to happen. There will be no streamlining of government because those great ideas, "after a comprehensive review," are not. I suspect the real problem with merging departments is the loss of patronage and fewer well-paid directors, thus the status quo. Hey, but don't believe me, I'm biased.

I call it a campaign speech because Healy continues to make the argument that the city's streets are the safest they've been in decades. This is the perpetual main plank of the Healy campaign platform -- public safety.

He said that last year saw the lowest number of homicides since 1969. Of course, the 13 killed in Jersey City represent 87 percent of all 2012 Hudson County murders, 15. This year there are five Hudson County killings, as of last week, and four of them are in Jersey City. Let's hope this rate doesn't continue during the warmer months.

"It isn't the mean old 1990s," said one city employee after the mayoral oratory. "And don't say what (Journal columnist) Earl Morgan always argues, that they are just bad shots."
No, the mayor said there is less thuggery thanks to the city gun buyback program and use of federal grants to hire more police. You "fearmongers" must see those officers all the time in your neighborhood and in key parts of the city ;) like Journal Square (inside the 7-Eleven).

As far as city crime, you know what they say: perception is reality.

There are so many wonderful things that the mayor says the city has accomplished that I would need at least another column of Insider Notes. Let's just say he mentioned some new parks, a bunch of affordable housing units, attacks on abandoned and vacant buildings, filling potholes and paving streets, and convincing Goya to move its operations from Secaucus to the county seat for an "in lieu in taxes" agreement. He claims there will be 500 permanent jobs at Goya. Either Goya is getting bigger or not many people want to go that extra mile to work. A state analytical memo concludes that there will be only nine new Goya jobs available.

I did notice that there were also many interesting phrases used in the address, including "in the process," "our plan," "by early spring," "by the end of the month," "currently finalizing," "the plan includes," "will be unveiled in the coming months," "when to best launch this initiative," "by next April," and "in late fall."

All these time-related words remind me of the "in a few months" comments in 2009 made about the ugly, bare Journal Square lot that is now fenced, displays an askew, falling artist's rendering of a skyscraper, and is home to a dumpster -- pretty much the state of what could be a great city.

INSIDER NOTES

-- Assemblyman Ruben Ramos says he is doing what the Insider said more than a year ago that the 33rd District state legislator would do -- because he had no other outlet -- run for mayor of Hoboken. Ramos has never been a favorite of the cliff-top king, 33rd District Sen. and Union City Mayor Brian Stack. Stack is cleaning out all the Assembly incumbents in the 33rd, including Jersey City's Sean Connors, who is now a Jersey City Heights council candidate. Ramos is seeking a higher municipal office.

Ramos' problem is that Zimmer is more popular these days thanks to her constant appearance in the media during Hurricane Sandy -- call it the Christie effect. She is seen as the reformers' dream, an eco-friendly closet car hater who can't have enough open spaces and parks in the Mile Square City. Although it would be nice if road, not just bike, lanes were freshly painted now and then.
Add to Ramos' problems is the inability of the anti-Zimmer forces to function without jealousy and a curse of too many "leaders."

-- A former Democrat turned Republican and now independent official, who favors the Spectra gas line, frowns on too much drinking -- soda, that is -- doesn't believe in term limits, once had a very rich clueless pal run a school district, compares a teachers union to the NRA, approves of NYPD spying on Muslims in Jersey City and other NJ burgs, and loves the commuter tax, has endorsed Healy.
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg backed his gun-control buddy in Jersey City and for this Healy was dubbed a "winner" on an Internet website. If the Big Apple little guy wants to help Healy out, he should have hosted a much needed fund-raiser for the Jersey City mayor like he did during Healy's 2009 run, when the campaign raised and spent more than $3 million. At the end of 2012, Healy had a touch over $300,000 on hand, while Fulop had more than $800,000.
Meanwhile, the Downtown folks are confused about just who is the mayor of Hagueville.

-- The question everyone is asking is who will replace Connors and Ramos as Stack's Assembly candidates? While Zimmer is hoping Councilman Ravi Bhalla gets a nod, I think Stack would prefer someone like Councilwoman Beth Mason because of her political attributes: female and rich. Then again, she may not want to ulitimately support Gov. Christie, Stack's good friend. The real question is who will be the candidate from, presumably, Jersey City? Tradition seems to dictate that one of the hopefuls will be a Hispanic.
More than likely, the senator has already received feelers from parties interested in any of the seats. My sources say Courtney Wicks, a former aide to 31st District Assemblyman Charles Mainor and past St. Peter's College basketball star, wants to enter the political waters. Although her background is Jersey City, Wicks has been living in Hoboken these days.

-- Speaking of Mainor, no one has seen him since Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel made fun of the state lawmaker from Jersey City for his Facebook "likes" that leaned toward sex and violence. I'm certain he wants equal time with the two TV personalities to give his re-butt-al.

-- Bayonne labor types -- ASCME, transit workers, iron workers, longshoremen and others -- had a fund-raiser for incumbent City Council members at the Chandelier Thursday evening. There were no city workers, cops or firefighters. But Assemblyman Jason O'Donnell did show up, say my spies. Some folks complained the food offerings weren't much for $125 a ticket.

I would have been surprised if any teachers showed up because a mob of angry educators attended that night's school board meeting to vent over the 800-member union not having a new contract since June 2010. If not resolved soon, this has the makings of a dangerous "situation" for the city administration.

-- I see that Groupon is offering a 52 percent discount on murder mystery dinner tickets at Terry Dehere's Sanai restaurant on Jersey City's Summit Avenue. I thought there already was a big mystery when two corrections officers were shot, one killed, outside the eatery, which was known in 2006 as the Blue Ribbon. My sources say the mystery was the identity of the corrections officer who left the scene of the murder and then quickly returned after realizing that he made a big mistake. Oh wait, was that ever reported?

-- Jersey City Ward C candidate Rich Boggiano is feeling the campaign magic. This week he put up 50 brand new campaign posters and the next morning they were all gone. Utility poles are being used but funny how the "official" posters were still up. Can you spell J-C-I-A?

-- Sad to see that attorney John Tomasin has died at age 88. Old timers in North Hudson remember John as a big critic of the late Anthony DeFino, mayor of West New York, but became a supporter near the end of DeFino's run. Tomasin was the Guttenberg town attorney for 25 years and held the same post in West New York for four years where he was also a municipal judge for nine years.

Tomasin was also president of the Hudson County Golfers Association. There was no golf course in the county and Tomasin made an unsuccesful pitch to have one built in the early days of Liberty State Park in Jersey City. Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise expects to tee off this year at the county's first public course in Lincon County Park. Too bad John will miss a tee time.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index ... insider_as_w_would_s.html